Zack does everything with a very distinct F-bomb style. Here’s him F-bombing a wave at Newport Beach, California.

I had one of those magical rides this evening at Trestles. The waves weren’t that sizey, glassy or perfectly shaped but there was this right. It was a trim down the line and do a cutback at the end kind of ride; nothing super special but I was still uber stoked. I think listening to Hoppipolla in my head helped loads. For those of you who don’t know Sigur Ros(shockingly some of my friends have never heard of them…) go check them out right now. Right f*cking now!

Oh yeah, sea temp is going up!

The life of a surfer’s garage.

Mitch and I have been working on this board for a while now. Here’s a cool little video of him hotcoating the bottom.

I got my first major ding on the hull yesterday. It didn’t even happen when I was surfing… The board was standing upright in the sand when a gust of wind knocked my godly board to the hard hard nose of my poplar skateboard. Mitch filled the hole in with black resin. Now the board looks excellent.

Alex Rowse, the designer of KooK, shipped me a stack all the way from the UK. I’m sure a lot of you have already heard of KooK but most of you probably don’t have a copy since they’re so limited.

For those of you that haven’t heard about KooK, it is a newspaper that gives you insight into the world of surfing that you rarely hear about.

Email me at james@scosurfing.com if you want to purchase a copy! Only 14 copies left so hurry hurry!

I go back to the UK pretty soon. I hope Poseidon gives California a good swell that lasts one month. And I hope the wind gods cooperate. I’m stoked with the last two sessions I’ve had though, super fun pitchy waves.

Oh yeah, Mitch saw the green flash during sunset yesterday at Newps. Lucky man…

Here’s a short film that Alex Rowse introduced to me.

Micky Smith is a surf photographer/bodyboard from the UK. In the span of about 6 minutes you’ll see his powerful imagery matched with a very poetic description of living as a surf photographer.

When I got my wetsuit on, I made the impatient decision to not wear a leash. Running into the water leash-free is an awesome experience because even when I walk with a leash on my board, I trip every time. I paddled over to the line up and caught my first wave right away. Since I was also surfing finless I was experiencing a very frictionless glide. I’ve never ridden an alaia on a wave before but I’m sure if felt pretty similar. Maybe it didn’t since alaias flex a lot more and have a concave bottom. Hulls have a convex bottom which means they do 360′s with ease. Anyways, I rode the wave, did some slidies, ended with a semi 360 and my board popped out from other my feet. Luckily, the tide was super low so I had the pleasure of walking back to shore on a bunch of slippery rocks with the occasional sharp barnacle covering their surface. I’m pretty sure that’s how I got this:

When Mitch and I stopped by at Ryan Lovelace‘s to pick up a friend’s hull some stuff went down. Since Mitch’s car was fully packed with both of our boards, our clothes, sleeping bags, cooler, and some food, there was no way that a 7 foot surfboard would fit inside even if we configured it so I sat in the back seat and the boards were on the front seat stacked. We had to strap the blade on the roof of Mitch’s car. Ryan was kind enough to put the hull in the first boardbag he ever owned just so the board wouldn’t get scratched. The boardbag wasn’t long enough for the hull so Ryan had to saran wrap the uncovered bit of the board. Connor Lyons and Nick Cook thought it would be funny to use the saran wrap for another use. A far better use. Watch the epic video to check out what they did.

I don’t actually collect tshirts but I’ve acquired a few during the years. Colony sent me a one of their tshirts and it’s a pretty cool one. The tshirts they create aren’t ones with very edgy street graphics or hand-drawn quirky surf doodles. It’s more of an elegant take on surfing and different surfing towns. The one they sent me takes the mick(to you american: taking the mick means to mock something) of the famous Keep Calm and Carry On war poster that used to be plastered all over England.

Brought to us by the honorable Shaun Tomson. Let’s keep to the code folks.

I’m still learning how to use Final Cut Express. Here’s some footy from Sacred Craft.

I totally forgot to do a post about stopping by Point Concept Surfboards. Anyways, Mitch and I were doing a 9 hour trek from San Francisco to Irvine and Ryan’s right in the middle. A friend of mine from England wanted me to pick up a board for him so we stopped by Lovelace’s. He has a pretty sweet thing going on since he shares his warehouse with a lot of like minded people. Good way to get some ideas churning around. I’m pretty stoked on the way my friend’s She-Hull turned out. It’s going to be tough to not ride it once some waves start rolling into Southern California. For the latest on flexiest surfboards on earth, check out Ryan’s Blog.

I saw a few surfing legends today when Tess and I went to Sacred Craft and the ASR show down in San Diego. Super stoked to meet Greg Noll, the ballsiest man of all time, Peter Townend, first world champion of surfing and Jordy Smith, awesome aerialist and current ASP number 1.

Photos with me in it were taken by Tess Iskra.

Today I went to my first Melting Moons show in Santa Cruz. It was pretty epic. The band is very different from any band I’ve heard before. It’s the perfect music to go with surfing clips yet it doesn’t sound like surfing music.

Edited by Mitch Rossi. Music by Seabear.

The awesome people at Quality Peoples were kind enough to put up a little something about me on their website. Give them a gander!

Today Tess and I hit up the US Open. It’s the first time I’ve seen a superman done in person.

Took my fish to Trestles today to test it out and Mitch took pictures of the whole thing. Super stoked that I was actually able to stand up and ride the thing. I’m pretty sure it’s the shortest stand up surfboard ever. Hopefully I’ll get better rides on it when the swell gets bigger and punchier. Once again, all photographs were taken by Mitch Rossi.